Live City, free concerts and stuff - Heavy security. Some dude named Mike Mays...
$250 a night! no extra pillows or towels!
Downtown
Public Cauldron and Rings in the Bay.
We gave the performance of our lives!
Robson street during the Gold Medal Game
Something I remember from the '80s
Stanley Park
China Town.
Our Olympic stuff!
This story begins July 2, 2003. 30 million Canadians and myself leaped for joy at the announcement that Vancouver would be the host of the 2010 Winter Games.
Fast forward to 2006, Vancouver Olympic Committee (Vanoc) announces the guidelines for ticket sales. Sales for tickets to Canadians was set for February 2009. After two rounds of lotteries, tickets would then be on sale to other nations through approved Ticket Resellers.
The newspapers denounced Canada's attempt to limit foreign participation. I started to think I was out of luck again, when I thought of my friend Steve, who lives in Toronto. Steve agreed to buy tickets for me. We were on again.
As the date of the lottery approached, I found myself with no extra money and no credit. Who would give me credit? I applied for a bunch of credit cards. I was approved for $300 from Juniper Bank... not going to get me far. Washington Mutual was in the headlines, a buyout appeared imminent. What would they care if they took on some additional debt, I thought. I applied and was given a $3000 limit days before they became Chase!
I worked out a schedule, I wanted to see the figure skating, speed skating, curling and a Ceremony, so I decided to try to get tickets for the last four days, ending with the Closing Ceremony. Steve got those events into the lottery. Now to wait.
and wait.
and wait.
Steve received an email many months later that said we had Closing Ceremony tickets! WHOO! So, on to prepare for the trip. I wanted to take the train, so I wouldn't have to worry about traffic or parking. The day tickets were available I attempted to place a reservation. I couldn't, Bronwen's passport was expired and Amtrak wouldn't even take a reservation without the Passport number.
While waiting for the passport, I made several trips to the Amtrak station to discuss the dilemma and get more info. Finally her passport came and we were booked.
I forgot about the hotel room! I was so focused on train tickets, I forgot to watch for the rooms to open. When I remembered, I panicked! I quickly went out to Expedia and Travelocity and it showed no available rooms... sigh. So I started searching hotel chains and checking with the hotels directly. Finally I found ONE room. I believe it was the last one in the city. A Best Western in Burnaby. The maps showed it to be on the light rail line, so I booked it. $250 a night!
It was probably 6 months till I actually knew I had the tickets, but I did not want to get excited yet. Steve finally received the tickets in January, and he mailed them to me overnight. I was sure they'd never make it. They finally showed up 3 days later! It was starting to become real.
The day had come. The train left Seattle at 7:45 am Saturday, 2/27 and we were on it, getting bumped to business class for some reason. Since there is no 6:20 am Ferry on Saturdays, we had to take the 5:20 am boat. When we got to Seattle, I was too paranoid of getting robbed to walk to King Street Station. We took a towncar. Its not the money I was worried about, it was the tickets, those are irreplaceable.
We arrived Vancouver around 11:30 am. The train ride was great, longer than my usual flights to Denver, but so much more enjoyable. The train rides along the banks of the Puget Sound nearly all the way to Canada. It was a beautiful trip. We saw two bald eagles.
We left the station and off to the the light rail station across the street to get us to Burnaby. When we got off, we were lost. I thought from the map, we'd be able to see the hotel, but we couldn't. We went across the street to a small grocery store to ask directions. The owner did not speak English, so we trusted our instincts and found the hotel. It was a little longer than it appeared on the map, but isn't that always the case?
The hotel was not ready for us. We left our bags with the desk and went to explore Burnaby.
We knew a mall was down the street a few blocks and we were ready for lunch, so we headed that way. We walked and looked at the businesses, Korean restaurant, Japanese restaurant, Korean bookstore, Japanese bank, one after another. Were we in Canada or Asia?
The mall was called "Metrotown". It was HUGE and it was packed. We had lunch at a Vietnamese place, it was ok. After lunch we did some shopping for souvenirs. The room was ready when we got back, we unpacked and headed back downtown on the light rail.
We got off the train and it was just a sea of people. We followed the crowd and ended up in Yaletown. There were booths everywhere full of trinkets, and a dj was spinning tunes in the middle of the street. The club the dj was from had quite a line up over the weeks, Dj Jazzy Jeff, Jermaine Dupri and a band we are seeing at Sasquatch, Deadmau5.
We went to LiveCity Yaletown, to see a free concert of Canadian hit sensation Mike Mays.. yeah, we had never heard of him either! He was pretty good, we watched 3 or 4 songs, then it started to rain and we left to go have dinner. We wanted to have Chinese food so we headed to China town.
What we found instead was a lot of Crack Cocaine. I've never see hard narcotics used openly before. A man approached us and asked us what we were doing there. He then pointed us towards some restaurants. What we found out is, Chinatown in Vancouver is a day time neighborhood. We did manage to find a place open and had some pretty good food.
The next day we got up and went to a "WhiteSpot" restaurant. It is a chain in BC, they are everywhere. It was a real nice place though, upscale Dennys is what I would call it. We had some Canadian comfort food. Oh, and every patron in the restaurant at 9:30 am Sunday was decked from head to toe in Canada hockey attire. The headline reads "Biggest Game in Canada History Today".
After breakfast we went to the Beer store across the street. We paid $14 for an 8 pack of Molson. They had a 6 pack of tallboys, they looked like 16 oz, but were something milliliters instead. $17 dollars! Wow, so this is how Canada pays for its health care!
We took the train downtown to go watch the Hockey game. When we got to Robson Street, it was a sea of red. The street was closed and there were tv's set up in the middle of the road. All the bars were packed. We went a ways off the strip and found a Keg restaurant that had a few tables left. The place again was packed. We couldn't see the tv, but could hear it, and of course hear 100 crazed Canada fans.
The game was close and as it came to end of regulation, the Canadians were whipped into frenzy, less than 1 minute to play. 30 seconds left. The place was about to erupt when, the US scored the tying goal!!!! USA! The 7 of us in attendance cheered and were drowned out by BOOS.
Overtime, the place was dead quiet... Anticipation was building in each play until finally the Canadians prevailed.
After the game, we made our way to BC Place for the closing Ceremonies. We got there about an hour early, as indicated on the ticket. On our seats were a big box. Inside the box was a snow globe from Sochi, a program, a blinky light, moose ears, a folded square piece of cardboard, black on one side, a color on the other and a smock.
At 4:30 they started to train us. First we learned the song. "Oh ohhh oh oh, Vancouooover", we sang it over and over again. Then they expained the folded paper and we practiced holding up our paper. Then we practiced the snow globe and the moose ears and blinky light and we were ready.
All around us sat Canadians, they were so happy to see us. The guy at the end of the row emphatically thanked us over and over again for coming.
The ceremony started with a tongue in cheek routine regarding the one leg of the Inukshuk that failed to open during the Opening Ceremony. A mime came out and "fixed it" and then the Canadian who did not get to light her part, came out to light it and the crowd loved it. It was clever and funny.
Then we had the formal IOC stuff, the Russian National Anthem with the Olypic flag hand off to Russia, the Greece National Anthem.. ok, lets get on with it! Out comes William Shatner! He was pretty funny. We noticed that in the program, Martin Short was also to perform, but he didn't and I still don't know why, maybe he got held up at the border! ;)
Michael Buble came out and did a number with a parade of Oversized Mounties and Moose and canoes and such. It was Canada.
Neil Young appeared on the stage and did a song.
The ceremonies closed with Canadians bands taking turns rocking out. Nickelback opened and really rocked. I am not familiar with the band, but they really rocked it. As they finished their set, Avril Lavigne started playing on the stage on the opposite end of stadium. They traded off, one band finishes, and the next band starts on the other stage. Aanis Morriset popped up in the middle of the stage for one song, which was pretty good. I didn't really care for most of the music. Hedly? Never heard of them, Simple Plan? Maria Mai? nope. Where the hell are my girls, Tegan and Sara to indie rock the place? Nope, but for that matter, Celine Dion didn't show up either!
A huge fireworks show erupted outside and inside the show concluded with hiphop and dance group K-OS (never heard of them). The dancers were good, but the 80's called and they want their outfits back! Neon? wow, kicking it Oldskool!
When we got outside around 9 pm, the party on the streets was in full swing. Cars were honking madly, people in red Maple leafs everywhere, dancing and singing Oh Canada! It was crazy!
We found a little bar called the Railroad Club. We wanted to get a beer and let the crowds die down, little did we know it wouldn't be calming down anytime soon! The doorman announced a $12 cover. We explained we just wanted to sit down for a few and have a beer, we weren't there for the bands, so he let us in.
An hour later, we hit the streets again. We decided to take the train back to Burnaby and get out of the mob scene. It was even more crowded now! We went to the train station and the line was so long, we couldn't even get into the station! Every train that came in was packed with more Red Maple Leafs, heading downtown to the massive party!
We decided we need to find a restaurant to chill for another hour or so. We stumbled across the Cactus Club. The doorman grabbed up from the back of a line of 10 or so, and seated us immediatley. We don't know why, but we didn't argue.
The place was GREAT! In fact, it may be my favorite restaurant. I had 2 Halibut fish tacos and they were unbelievable. Bronwen had Jack Daniels Ribs and the plate came piled high, the meat fell off the bone. She said they were fantastic.
We left a little after 11 and were finally able to get into train, but it was still packed with anthem singing fans.
The next morning we headed downtown with our bags. Goodbye Burnaby!
We got off downtown and started walking. We were lost again. A man approached us and asked if we knew where we were going. I told him we were looking for a hotel to leave our bags at. He informed us that we were in Skid Row. He told us how to get back to the hotel district.
Then we stumbled upon Chinatown, the real one, the daytime one. We ended up eating Dimsum on the street. It was fabulous.
We finally found a place to leave our bags, then went and shopped some. We walked down Robson, all the way to Stanley Park. I spotted two things that I remember from my early visits back in the '80s. My friends and I used to come here often in the late 80s, early 90s. There is very little in Vancouver that was the same as it was 20 years ago.
Finally we boarded the train and our trip was over. :( See you in Sochi in 2014! (I wish...)
